Today's automotive vehicles can include electronic or shift-by-wire automatic transmissions where shifting commands from a park-reverse-neutral-drive shift lever are transmitted to the transmission by electric or electronic signals. With such transmissions, a mechanical device can be used to manually shift the transmission out of park if vehicle electrical power is lost. Vehicles with a large mass and/or vehicles parked on grades can place greater force on the transmission in the park state, which can require greater force to be exerted by the mechanical device to manually release the transmission from park for such vehicles. The mechanical devices can be positioned inside the vehicle near the driver, and are designed to be minimal in size to conserve space for other vehicle control devices and features. Thus, there remains a need for improvement in the relevant art for a park release system for an electronically controlled or shift-by-wire automatic transmission for a vehicle.